Navigating Uncertainty with Agility: Adaptive Planning for Value-Driven Delivery by Fariz Saracevic
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In today's business landscape, navigating uncertainty and adapting swiftly is critical for success. This session discusses how project, program, and portfolio managers can use adaptive planning techniques to turn uncertainty into an advantage. Presenter will describe how to define value, plan across multiple levels, deliver value incrementally, and adapt as they go. Additionally, presenter will share how IBM's Engineering Workflow Management (EWM) helps achieve team agility and scale it across the enterprise for value-driven development.
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IBM Engineering Workflow Management
Optimize across value stream
Bring hybrid teams together by
bridging their tools’ information
islands to deliver value in a fast
and predictable manner
For organizations who have complex planning needs, EWM makes agile and lean
practices actionable to deliver efficiently and effectively at ever increasing scale.
Gain actionable insights
Visualize engineering data
and program-wide status for
actionable insights and
predictable delivery
outcomes
Achieve Enterprise Agility
Facilitate planning and manage
work to accelerate the flow of
work across the value stream for
continuous value delivery
Unlike other Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools, EWM:
10 out of 10 largest[2]
automotive OEM’s
7 out of 10 largest [6]
system integrators
7 out of 10 largest[5]
medical device manufacturers
10 out of 10 largest[4]
tier 1 automotive suppliers
5 out of 10 largest [8]
semi conductors’ design companies
10 out of 10 largest[3]
aerospace and defense companies
Government institutions
in more than 40 countries
7 out of 10 largest[7]
banks
5 out of 10
largest[9] pharmaceutical companies
Creates a digital thread
built on open standards
(OSLC) across disciplines
Operates at the scale that
is required by advanced
product-line engineering
Drives consistency,
completeness, and correctness
to show compliance to industry
standards](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/navigatinguncertaintywithagility-adaptiveplanningforvalue-drivendeliveryv2-250414213035-57c42f13/85/Navigating-Uncertainty-with-Agility-Adaptive-Planning-for-Value-Driven-Delivery-by-Fariz-Saracevic-15-320.jpg)
Navigating Uncertainty with Agility: Adaptive Planning for Value-Driven Delivery by Fariz Saracevic
- 1. April 10, 2025 - Dubai, UAE Navigating Uncertainty with Agility: Adaptive Planning for Value-Driven Delivery Fariz Saracevic, Senior Product Manager IBM Engineering
- 3. Learning Objectives At the conclusion of this session, attendees will be able to: • Express a pragmatic approach of defining value, multi-level adaptive planning, incremental value delivery, and continuous adaptation for value-driven delivery. • Describe how IBM® Engineering Workflow Management enables adaptive multi-level planning, minimizes bottlenecks, and accelerates incremental value delivery. 3
- 4. Agenda • How is ‘Uncertainty’ setting new goals for organizations? • How to realize new goals for organizations? • How can IBM® Engineering Workflow Management help realize these goals? • How to be successful in realizing these goals? • Quick Summary 4
- 5. 5 There is always an element of uncertainty. Embrace it and adapt. In software development, uncertainty is a feature, not a bug. It drives innovation and creativity. Uncertainty is the normal state in software development. The key is to manage it, not eliminate it. The challenge of software development lies in managing uncertainty. Transform it into opportunity.
- 6. 6 Navigating Uncertainties is hard Integration issues Multiple configurations and integrations Slow processes to deliver software Team Dynamics Changing requirements Complexity of Technology Resource constraints Market and Regulatory requirements Misaligned client expectations Resistance to Change External Dependencies
- 7. 7 Setting new goals for organizations Transform Quality Achieve Enterprise Agility Adopt the critical skills, principles, and practices needed to create high- performing teams who can deliver differentiating capabilities at the speed needed to satisfy market demands. Move large and complex software and systems development from stage- gated approaches to a flow-based delivery- model which is organized around delivering what the client wants and needs. Ensure that investments are driving high quality changes, in terms of both the delivery of high-valued features as well as low- or zero- defect functionality. Focus on client value
- 8. 8 Realizing the new goals 1. Build Incrementally 2. Create successful Agile teams 3. Scale across the Enterprise 4. Organize around client value 5. Adapt as you go Delivery Teams Efficiency Organization Effectiveness Scope Goal
- 9. 9 1. Building incrementally helps accelerate value delivery Cadence supports natural Work-In-Process limits that foster learning cycles across the Value Stream General Distribution Limited Distribution Solution Ready Product Committed Exploration Feasibility Supplier P D C A P D C A P D C A … and also delivers better economics
- 10. 10 2. Create successful Agile teams – Cross-functional, self-organizing entities that can define, build and test a thing of value – Deliver value every two weeks – Apply basic scientific practice: Plan—Do—Check—Adjust – Adapt plans continually to reflect changes in requirements, priorities, feedback, retrospectives, and environmental factors. – Visualize and limit work in progress (WIP) to match demand to capacity. – Work in smaller batches to reduce WIP and go through the system faster and with less variability. – Reduce queue lengths of committed work to minimize delays, improve predictability, and reduce waste. – Fail fast by carrying out experiments / spikes early on to reduce risk. Agile Principles Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan
- 11. 11 3. Scale across the Enterprise - team of Agile Teams Align 5-12 practitioners to a common shared vision Align Portfolio to Strategic Themes Establish clear goals and outcomes Synchronize end-of- iteration periods across teams. Forecast deliverables using Roadmap Facilitate teams of teams planning Ensure work prioritization flows from top to bottom Roll-up progress and status of work Manage dependencies to minimize handoffs Establish communication channels to remove silos Support hybrid teams Unify the tribes through standardized process and tools Create alignment across levels Plan across multiple levels Establish intelligence Orchestrate across teams Use ‘single source of truth’ for cross-team progress, status, risk, trends for all stakeholders Measure and track what matters Measure flow of business value
- 12. 12 4. Define value Organize value ▪ Organize around delivering what the client wants and needs. ▪ Collaborate cross- domain resources ▪ Strive for transparency Create a ‘shared’ vision ▪ Create a shared understanding of goals and value to be delivered ▪ Adopt a “Systems View” approach to understand the big picture of what needs to be delivered ▪ Manage stakeholder expectations Drive economic value ▪ Take an economic view to prioritize investments ▪ Visualize workflow to eliminate waste and respect work-in-process (WIP) limits ▪ Understand solution economic trade-offs
- 13. 13 5. Adapt as you go Short feedback loops to adapt quickly Periodic retrospectives to identify improvement opportunities Empower teams to take ownership, be responsible Continuously learn, adapt, and improve
- 14. 15 How can IBM help realize these goals?
- 15. 16 IBM Engineering Workflow Management Optimize across value stream Bring hybrid teams together by bridging their tools’ information islands to deliver value in a fast and predictable manner For organizations who have complex planning needs, EWM makes agile and lean practices actionable to deliver efficiently and effectively at ever increasing scale. Gain actionable insights Visualize engineering data and program-wide status for actionable insights and predictable delivery outcomes Achieve Enterprise Agility Facilitate planning and manage work to accelerate the flow of work across the value stream for continuous value delivery Unlike other Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools, EWM: 10 out of 10 largest[2] automotive OEM’s 7 out of 10 largest [6] system integrators 7 out of 10 largest[5] medical device manufacturers 10 out of 10 largest[4] tier 1 automotive suppliers 5 out of 10 largest [8] semi conductors’ design companies 10 out of 10 largest[3] aerospace and defense companies Government institutions in more than 40 countries 7 out of 10 largest[7] banks 5 out of 10 largest[9] pharmaceutical companies Creates a digital thread built on open standards (OSLC) across disciplines Operates at the scale that is required by advanced product-line engineering Drives consistency, completeness, and correctness to show compliance to industry standards
- 16. 17 Create a shared vision Solution Elaboration Artifacts Adopt a design thinking approach for better understanding the problem to be solved, the context in which the solution will be used, and the evolution of that solution. Define scenarios, requirements and traceability to implementation and test artifacts.
- 17. 18 Align Portfolio to Strategic Themes Strategic Themes Provide business context for portfolio strategy and decision-making, representing aspects of the enterprise’s strategic intent, through associations to related Organizations (Value Stream, Solution Train, or ART) and tracked Objectives at various levels of the organization.
- 18. 19 Establish clear goals and outcomes OKR Board Strategic Themes - Objectives Use Objective-Key Results (OKRs) to: • Enhance strategic alignment through specific and measurable actions. • Define business outcomes for tracked epics in the Portfolio Kanban. • Set improvement goals and measure the success of a SAFe transformation.
- 19. 20 Accelerate flow of value Visualize and limit work in progress (WIP) to match demand to capacity. Work in smaller batches to reduce WIP and go through the system faster and with less variability. Reduce queue lengths of committed work to minimize delays, improve predictability, and reduce waste. WIP Limits (green = ok, red = violation) SAFe Kanban ‘queues’ Respect workflow transitions Business (blue) and Enabler (yellow) Epics
- 20. 21 Forecast deliverables using Roadmap Communicate planned deliverables, milestones, and investments over a time across multiple planning horizons. Link strategy to execution to develop, evolve and adjust planned activities in terms of what and how to build within the next timebox. Provide stakeholders with a view of the current, near-term, and longer-term deliverables that realize the Portfolio Vision and Strategic Themes. Timeline Planned Iteration Owning Team Work across ARTs
- 21. 22 Drive Economic value WSJF automatically calculated based on set WSJF component values and list of Features is re-sorted Optimize economics versus theoretical job return on investment (or worse, first-come, first-served, loudest voice) to ensure the highest value is delivered in the shortest lead time. Prioritize the backlog using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF), to minimize cost of delay (COD).
- 22. 23 Plan across multiple delivery horizons Propose and plan how features and stories will be delivered across different planning intervals to deliver value. Apply cadence and synchronize with cross-domain planning to ‘plan’ commitment to the ART business. Steer the ART during execution to improve flow and ART performance. Drag & Drop to plan Iterations Quickly create work items Rank items
- 23. 24 Measure flow of business value Flow Velocity measures the number of completed work items over a time period. Flow Distribution is a measure of the proportion of work items by type in a system. Flow Time is a measure of the time elapsed from start to completion for a given work item. Flow Load is a measure of the number of work items currently in progress (active or waiting). Flow Efficiency is the ratio of the total time spent in value- added work activities divided by the total flow time. Use Flow metric reports to measure effectiveness of an organization at delivering value . Measure how reliably teams and ARTs are achieving the objectives they set for themselves. Identify opportunities for improvement at every level of the framework. Flow Velocity Flow Distribution Flow Time Flow Load Flow Efficiency
- 24. 25 Minimize handoffs and dependencies Make handoffs and dependencies visible to ensure teams and ARTs are truly cross-functional and as self-sufficient as possible. Manage dependencies to address bottlenecks, reduce wait time, and rework that interrupt flow of value. View and create dependencies Red lines indicate risk due to dependencies
- 25. 26 ROAM Risks Identify risks and impediments that could impact the ART and its teams ability to meet their objectives. Review, ROAM risks periodically to manage the risks during PI execution. • Resolved – The teams agree that the risk is no longer a concern • Owned – Own the risk since it cannot be addressed during PI planning • Accepted – Some items are simply facts or potential problems that must be understood and accepted • Mitigated – Teams identify a plan to reduce the impact of the risk Highlights high impact risks ROAM your risks
- 27. 28 How to be successful realizing these goals?
- 28. 29 To be successful at value-driven delivery 1. Transform every aspect of the Enterprise 2. Focus on transformations that matter 3. Decide your motivations and goals 5. Make reporting your best friend 4. Choose the right adoption path
- 29. 30 1. Transform every aspect of the enterprise Tools Process Establish a collaborative, cross- discipline and experimental culture across the organization in order to develop, drive and sustain Innovation Shorten traditional manual and lengthy processes and strive to improve them – continuously Provide purposeful automation to create an end-to-end delivery platform for implementation of Innovation – easily Measure Measure success in terms of client value delivered as opposed to number of features People
- 30. 31 2. Focus on Transformations that Matter Consistent, Collaborative, Cross-Domain Tooling Evolving toward consistency of the tooling and the method Inconsistent Tooling No Collaboration Inconsistent Process Small, independent teams “doing their own thing” Consistent Process Lean & Agile Principles @ Scale Method Tooling Focus on Team-based productivity Cross-Domain, team-of-teams, tactical orchestration (structure, not method) Unified tooling with modern methods built in (demonstrable improvement)
- 31. 32 3. Decide on your motivations and goals as an organization Enterprise Productivity Team of Teams Productivity Team Productivity Enterprise Productivity Manage Change Orchestrate Distributed Teams Focus on client value Build Quality In Ensure Compliance Establish Development Intelligence
- 32. 33 Evolve as your needs grow ”Agile your way” – Start simply, learn, improve and evolve Team Level Program Level Solution Level Portfolio Level Simple agile planning Basic change/task management + Roadmap planning + Cross-team backlog & dependency mgmt + Roadmap planning + Cross-Program dependency management at a systems level + Business planning + Strategy, initiatives, lean business cases + Business- engineering alignment – Add capabilities as you mature – Expand across domains to involve all roles in the lean enterprise transformation – Apply lean thinking to your agile adoption: do as little or as much as you need to get value
- 33. 34 4. Choose the right adoption path One size does not fit all… Your path depends on where you are and where you have decided to be. - Top-down approach - Bottom-up approach …or just start from the middle
- 34. 35 5. Make reporting your best friend! Evaluate Team behavior Define goals and track value delivery Do Agile self- assessments Demonstrate measured improvement ✓ Establish iteration objectives ✓ Provide system demonstrations ✓ Assess achieved value ✓ Higher quality ✓ Improved Velocity ✓ Better release predictability ✓ Enforce what’s important (varies) ✓ Report on process exceptions (for analysis only) ✓ Assess at the end of each iteration: how did you do and how can you improve?
- 35. 36 Summary
- 36. 37 37 1. Build Incrementally 2. Create successful Agile teams 4. Organize around client value 3. Scale across the Enterprise 5. Adapt as you go IBM Engineering Workflow Management For organizations who have complex planning needs, EWM makes agile and lean practices actionable to deliver efficiently and effectively at ever increasing scale. Focus on outcomes and not output Fewer handoffs, delays, waiting Easier to build in quality Better commitment to iteration goals Transform every aspect of the Enterprise Focus on transformations that matter Decide your level of maturity Choose the right adoption path Make reporting your best friend Uncertainty
- 37. 38 Get started today R e q u i r e m ents Te s t Work f l o w S y s t e m Design Engineering Lifecycle Management with AI Familiarize yourself with IBM Engineering Workflow Management Try using the sandbox on jazz.net
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